This disclosure relates generally to messaging systems, and more particularly to monitoring messages in high load scenarios in a message exchange infrastructure.
Message exchange systems, such as SAP AG's exchange infrastructure (XI), are used to integrate external systems using proprietary, legacy or standard messaging formats. In SAP's XI, for example, senders and receivers are separated from one another, and exchange messages using an Integration Server. This separation makes it easier to connect systems that are technologically different. Every system that can exchange messages with the Integration Server can also exchange messages with all other systems that are connected to the Integration Server.
SAP's XI supports direct communication using proxies, which are generated in the application systems using a description in WSDL (Web Service Description Language). XI also supports communication using adapters. In this case, interfaces for message exchange are created in the application system, or existing interfaces are used. Simple message processing on the Integration Server is stateless, e.g., the Integration Server does not know of any connections between various messages.
Cross-component integration processes, on the other hand, describe related processes, which can use the knowledge about messages that have already been processed to further control the process (for example, waiting for the corresponding response for a message in order to start further actions). SAP's XI enables enterprises to model, change, and manage these cross-component integration processes centrally. These processes are executed on the Integration Server and are included in message processing by configuration.
After starting with pilot projects for introducing a message exchange system in their enterprises, customers increasingly use those systems for bigger and more business-critical scenarios with a large message load. However, message exchange systems such as XI are very complex tools which only provide a limited means for controlling and monitoring. Thus, it is getting more and more difficult to detect errors and erroneous situations and to prove that the message exchange system is in a healthy state.